Co-operation 197 



his fruit together in one market 1 . It remains to add that the 

 co-operative sale of eggs is also a great advantage to the small holder 

 in his competition with his larger rivals : and that it can easily be 

 organised in connection with other co-operative undertakings. 



It is satisfactory to find that as early as 1898 a propagandist 

 society of the same nature as the Agricultural Organisation Society 

 was founded for the special purpose of organising poultry-breeding 

 and the sale of eggs on a co-operative basis. This association, the 

 National Poultry Organisation Society, is now in close touch with 

 the Agricultural Organisation Society; it has an increasing number 

 of branches in connection with it, and their success has been such as 

 to prove how great a service such co-operation may be to the small 

 poultry-farmers 2 . The days are over when the farmer's wife found it 

 profitable to go to market with her basket of eggs on her arm. The 

 market of today demands even of this branch of agriculture the 

 regular transmission of large quantities and uniform quality. The 

 individual small holder cannot possibly respond to this demand, and 

 if it were not for the help afforded him by the co-operative collecting 

 depdts he would be altogether at a disadvantage in the marketing of 

 his goods as compared with the large farmer. 



It is therefore possible for the small holder to rid himself by 

 means of co-operation of the disadvantages at which he stands as 

 compared with the large holder in stock-farming and market- 

 gardening. Co-operation can abolish his difficulties in regard of 

 purchase, production and sale. In this way he is able, in those 

 branches of production where he already is superior or at least on an 

 equality with the large farmer, to do away with whatever advantages 

 had remained with the latter. Co-operation can turn what was 

 previously simply an advantage in certain points on the part of the 

 small holder into an absolute and unconditional superiority. The 

 consequence will be that the large farmer in his turn will join the 

 co-operative association, to avoid being crushed by it, realising of 

 necessity that e.g. a co-operative steam-dairy can produce and distri- 

 bute much more economically than any one person's dairy, however 



1 Cp. Second Annual Report of the A. O. S., p. 7, where it is said to have been the 

 experience of the Bewdley Society that goods properly sorted, of which the buyer can be 

 certain that he will get always the same quantity and quality, command a much higher pric 

 in the market than unsorted wares even of equally good quality : so that, as no one but a 

 large grower can sort and send his goods in such a manner, co-operation is the true means 

 whereby foreign competition can be met. 



2 See The Marketing of Eggs and Poultry, Leaflet No. 8 of the National Poultry 

 Organisation Society. 



